Ray Bradbury

For writers, the value of a compliment lies not in the effusion of words, but in the source of them. Even the most modest statement of encouragement for the most minor effort, from the right person, can make your day and sometimes your decade. And that explains why I still treasure a letter I received on September 5, 2001, from Ray Bradbury. “Dear Bill Newcott,” it begins, “Thank you for your good letter.” Good letter. Good letter! One of the …

Science fiction great Ray Bradbury, who died this morning in Los Angeles at age 91, started his writing career in the early 1940s, in an era when radios with tubes were state-of-the-art technology. But Bradbury envisioned a different world, one in which scientific and technological advances radically altered human existence, and not necessarily in positive ways. Though he published 59 books in his lifetime, including the classic story collections The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man, for most of us the …